Anaheim at Detroit (2/20/09)

Tonight’s game was at home against the Anaheim Ducks. Giguere was the goalie for the Ducks and Conklin was in net for Detroit. Babcock had called up Jimmy Howard and given Osgood the next 10 days off. Babcock wants Osgood to get his game back in shape. Howard was the backup goaltender tonight and he’ll get the start tomorrow night.

In the opening seconds of the first period Detroit took the first penalty. Lidstrom accidentally got his stick up high on Perry. Anaheim went to work on the power play. Draper ended up without a stick and the puck came to Getzlaf. He took advantage of the stickless Draper shooting the puck past him and Conklin to give the Ducks the early lead. The Red Wings were down one to nothing less than a minute into the game.

Later in the first period Zetterberg had the puck in deep in the Anaheim zone. He sent it towards the net where Cleary had set up shop against Pronger. Cleary redirected the puck and scored to even it up at one apiece.

The Red Wings got a power play goal late in the first period. Lidstrom passed it to Zetterberg behind the net. He sat back there and waited for something to develop. Datsyuk broke away from his defender and went to the net. Zetterberg hit him with a perfectly timed pass that he slammed into the back of the net. That gave the Wings the lead at the end of the period.

In the second period Detroit scored another power play goal with only one second left on the penalty. Datsyuk made a perfect pass to Zetterberg in the circle. He went down to one knee and ripped one. Giguere got a piece of it but it got through him and into the net. Before the penalty had expired Pronger was called for high sticking so the Wings stayed on the power play after the goal. The Ducks were able to kill off the second penalty.

Early in the third period the Ducks were moving the puck out of their own zone. They tried to make a short pass but Franzen came out of nowhere. He intercepted the pass in the slot area, turned around quickly and shot it. Giguere never knew what hit him. He wasn’t expecting the shot at all so he wasn’t set. It was an amazing job by Franzen; the whole play took about one second. That goal made it four to one Red Wings.

Later in the third period the Ducks dumped the puck in and Conklin came out of the net to play it. The puck was spinning and took a strange bounce when it the ice. It bounced away from Conklin’s stick as he attempted to clear it. Conklin couldn’t get the puck back under control. Ryan came in and poked the puck away from Conklin and into the net. That brought the Ducks back to within two.

That looked like it would be it for this game, but Draper wasn’t done yet. With about 10 seconds left Giguere was trying to come out of the net for an extra skater but Draper stole the puck at center ice. Giguere got back to the net and Draper came in all alone. He ripped one that beat Giguere for a bonus goal.

That was all she wrote for the Ducks. This was another great game for the Wings. Conklin had lots of brilliant saves. The Red Wings dominated at both ends. Let’s hope they keep this roll going tomorrow night in Minnesota.

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on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Games.
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